


Waited

by lovefaun



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Firestar and Sandstorm split after their kits were born but they’re still close friends, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, M/M, More characters to be added, The angst is very very very slight
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:14:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27511375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovefaun/pseuds/lovefaun
Summary: When Graystripe returns to the Clans, Firestar makes it a point to never leave his side. Graystripe doesn’t truly understand why until the two manage to speak the words that had been hanging between them for way too long.
Relationships: Firestar/Graystripe (Warriors)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 53





	Waited

By the time Graystripe had arrived in the clearing, he felt just about ready to collapse from exhaustion.

What felt like hundreds of eyes bore into his skin in embarrassing flames that made his fur prick and bristle. He felt the urge to dip his head and back away from the shock that surged across each cat, but he felt glued into place as if he had his paws stuck in a puddle of mud.

His ears pinned back when suddenly cats began to shout with excitement. Millie seemed to pick up his anxiety and she pressed close to him, her short pelt rising on end as she met every strange look that cats gave her and gave them a threatening one in return to warn them not to mess with her. None of them ever tried.

Words blurred and mixed together in Graystripe’s ears, beginning to sound muffled. He felt like he was going to faint, but somehow, one particular voice was clearer and louder than them all. The voice he’d been dreaming of for what felt like countless seasons. The voice that kept him motivated to go on when he wanted to give up, the one that he had missed so dearly.

“Graystripe?” that sweet voice called from far away, high above the crowd. He heard a familiar set of pawsteps as the cat jumped from his perch, flame colored fur hurriedly pushing past the crowd of cats like a wild, crazed fire spreading through a forest. “Graystripe!”

Graystripe felt his legs buckle and his weight began to give away, but that loving, flaming cat was already underneath him to support him. 

“Graystripe!” His usually loving voice was full of concern at that moment. Graystripe’s eyes felt like they wanted to roll into the back of his head but his voice was what kept him grounded to the moment, albeit weakly.

“Firestar...”

“Hey, I’m here, it’s me. Graystripe—you’re okay. Okay? I’m going to take you home.” Green eyes blazed confidently, but the choice to speak his next words gave away his true thoughts as his voice quivered from anxiety when he addressed all four Clans. “The Gathering is over!”

Graystripe barely registered when Firestar called his Clan to help the weakened warrior along. He heard his best friend’s muffled voice asking something to Millie. He had to focus super hard and strain his hearing to hear them, and even then it made his head pound with a killer ache.

“When was the last time he’s eaten?” Firestar’s words came out harshly as he looked at Millie, but he breathed in deep. “Sorry...I know it’s been hard for both of you, I’m just worried. I’ve never seen him like this before.”

Millie gave him an apologetic look. Her eyes were glazed with hunger and exhaustion as well, but Graystripe seemed to have taken the worst of the hit. “I don’t know,” she admitted carefully. “I tried to look after him, I promise. At some point he stopped eating because the closer we got, the more determined he was to find everyone.”

Firestar shook his head. “He must have wanted to come home so bad, that’s so unlike him. Usually he would have stopped for prey twice as many times as he would have needed,” his voice held a hint of fond amusement, overly shadowed by his worry and even a hint of guilt. He nodded to Millie, “Thank you. I’d like you to come with us.”

“I’ll never leave his side,” Millie whispered warmly, and that was the last thing Graystripe heard before he stopped focusing on it, trying to put all he could manage into each pawstep.

Too many bodies to count were pressed up against him from every side and several tails were draped across his back to comfort him as well as guide him. Graystripe almost felt suffocated by it. The air felt tight and pressured around him.

After what felt like moons, his guidance came to a halt and Graystripe stopped on his feet, wobbling slightly until one of the cats pressed to his side lightly tensed against him to keep him steady. Some of the cats ahead of him moved to the side and he lifted his weary gaze to see Firestar approaching him.

“We’re home now,” Firestar whispered to him, gently bumping his forehead. “Welcome back to ThunderClan, my dear old friend.”

Graystripe only breathed in response, his legs wobbling again. Something similar to a sigh of relief escaped him.

Firestar seemed to take the hint and he quickly backed away. “Brambleclaw, Cloudtail, I need you to take him to my den. And, uh— I’m sorry, I never asked your name.”

“Millie,” the silver she cat responded with a tired, dazed smile. “And I’m okay, I can rest elsewhere.”

Firestar only nodded briefly, “I’ll have my warriors making you an extra space in no time. Dustpelt? There should be some space behind the warriors’ den to build up something.”

Graystripe listened as Firestar ordered his Clan around but blocked it out when he was led up the rocky formation towards the leader’s den. The second his paws hit moss he flopped down on his side and heaved out a tired breath. He felt two pairs of eyes giving him a concerned look before they retreated, but he was unbothered.

Time passed and he stirred lightly in the moss nest at the sound of two voices whispering above him.

“...and I’m having Jaypaw check on Millie now. He’ll tell me if he finds anything concerning, but I’m more worried about Graystripe,” the soft voice was mewing. “He doesn’t look good.”

“I am too,” Firestar, the second voice, responded. Graystripe stirred again in his nest, blinking his eyes open. Immediately, they were met with a green gaze.

“Firestar?”

“Hi,” Firestar bent his head to touch Graystripe’s nose. “I was just talking to Leafpool about your condition.”

“Where’s...Where’s Millie?”

“Don’t worry, she offered to sleep elsewhere. She’s not far away. I guess she didn’t want to overcrowd the den, though I would not have minded.”

Graystripe blinked weakly, his exhaustion still settling in. “Oh,” he mewed plainly, shifting uncomfortably. His whole body ached. “I’m thirsty.”

Firestar turned and nodded to Leafpool, and within an instant the brown tabby retreated from the den. He turned back to look at his old friend and settled down beside him, tucking his paws underneath his body.

“How are you feeling?” Firestar asked him softly, his ginger tail coming up to lightly stroke Graystripe’s back.

“Tired,” was all he could manage to respond.

Firestar sniffed. “I can imagine. You’re pretty worn.” He looked over his shoulder at the sound of paws entering his den. Leafpool walked in with a ball of soaked moss being carried in her mouth. She set it down close to Graystripe.

“I passed Jaypaw along the way,” she mewed softly. “He said Millie is fine. She just needs to rest. Have you told him yet?” Her last question was directed to Firestar.

“No, not yet.”

Leafpool nodded. “I’m going to go get him some freshkill.” With that, she was out again.

The two toms sat in silence until the medicine cat had brought back a thrush that was on the plumper side. She set it down beside the moss.

“If you need anything, I’ll be with Jaypaw,” Leafpool mewed quietly to the two. She turned to Firestar and whispered words that Graystripe couldn’t catch before she slipped out for the final time.

Firestar sighed, shifting where he was laying on his paws and looked at Graystripe. The larger tom was lapping at the moss and taking as many droplets as he could from it before stuffing his mouth with feathers and the bird’s meat.

“Graystripe...” Firestar began in the prolonged silence, his voice trailing off as he searched for the right words. He shook his head. “Where have you been?”

“I was a kittypet for a while,” Graystripe mumbled around his food, his mouth full. He swallowed. “When I escaped, it felt like I was moons away from the old territory. And then I found it, and...”

Firestar leaned forward slightly, his ears pricked with interest. “What happened to it?”

Graystripe clawed at the moss below him idly. “It was all destroyed,” he muttered. “I could barely even recognize the old camp. I felt so lost.”

Firestar’s whiskers twitched. He seemed to pick up exactly on what was whirling in Graystripe’s mind. “Graystripe, I would have given all of my lives to have stayed behind and waited for you.”

The gray warrior sighed. Those were the words he wanted to hear, but there was a bitter sadness that still stabbed his heart.

“I know that you couldn’t have,” Graystripe muttered.

“But StarClan knows how much I wanted to,” Firestar looked at him with soft eyes. “It was the Clan who had to make me go on. I wasn’t losing a deputy. I was losing my best friend.”

The mention of the Clan hurt. At the time, Graystripe had been their deputy. He scoffed, “What kind of deputy gets themselves captured by twolegs?”

“Stop. It could have been any cat, and you know it,” Firestar mumbled gently, nosing the gray tom’s cheek affectionately. “It could have been me. I’m a Clan leader, but would you have blamed me?”

“Well, no...”

“You did the bravest thing any deputy could have done, and I could have never been any prouder as your Clan leader,” Firestar nuzzled his head. “You risked everything to save your own Clanmates, and cats in other Clans too. You knew all the risks, and you took them, don’t you see?”

Graystripe swallowed. He poked at the remainders of his thrush with a single claw. “You’re just saying that,” he mumbled, taking another bite. He was starting to feel a little sick from nerves. 

“But I mean it.”

“A Clan deputy wouldn’t have...” Graystripe nearly choked on his words, the bird’s meat catching in his throat. He forced himself to swallow the mouthful. “A deputy wouldn’t have enjoyed...being a kittypet.” As his sentence went on, his voice got quieter.

“I was born a kittypet, Graystripe. Don’t you remember?”

Graystripe blinked at him apologetically. “It’s easy to forget sometimes. But it feels different.”

Firestar tilted his head. “How?”

Graystripe sighed. A heat wave of shame washed over his pelt, making his skin burn embarrassedly. “I tried so hard to reject the soft life,” he mewed. “But sometimes, it felt so easy to give in. The way they would pet me, care for me... If I had thought there was truly no hope to find the Clans again, I guess- I guess I could have stayed.” The words hurt, but he knew he could be honest with his friend.

Firestar nuzzled his head. “I know what it’s like. You think I don’t miss it sometimes, too?” he assured him gently. “But Graystripe, you’re a _warrior_. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. If you weren’t a warrior, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

Graystripe felt a purr rumble in the back of his throat and he closed his eyes affectionately as Firestar nuzzled him, brushing his scent against him. “I guess so,” the gray tom mewed finally. “I’d go to sleep and hear your voice calling for me. You were the only thing keeping me going.”

“Was I now?” There was fond laughter in Firestar’s purr. “Well, I’m glad I could pester you in your dreams.”

Graystripe only purred, bumping his head underneath Firestar’s chin. He slightly shifted closer.

“I don’t know what I could have done without you, Graystripe,” Firestar’s voice was suddenly serious and honest. “There were nights I refused to accept you were gone forever, but...But I had to, to appoint a new deputy that StarClan would accept.” His words were forced, as if they were tearing him apart from the inside to even say them. “I don’t know what I would have done if you were dead. I just thought about having to wait out the rest of my lives just to see you again.”

“Well I’m not dead, am I?” Graystripe meowed affectionately. It was his turn to comfort the other tom. “You know I would have walked seasons in the sky just to find you and visit you in your dreams.”

Firestar looked like he had more to say, but he shook his head. Graystripe felt a pang of disappointment as the ginger leader stood to his paws, breaking their embrace. “I’m going to get you another piece of freshkill,” he mewed to the gray warrior.

“But I’m not—“ Before he could finish his protest, Firestar had slipped out of the den. With a sigh, he pushed aside the scraps of his thrush and rested his head on his paws. Time seemed to slip away from him as he fell into a comforting sleep while waiting for his friend to return.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoy! Comments and input are appreciated. :>


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